einstein

Earman, Clark Glymour, and Robert Rynasiewicz; and Michel Jannsen listed in the bibliography. See also Wertheimer 1959. Arthur I. Miller
provides a careful and skeptical look at Max Wertheimer’s attempt to reconstruct Einstein’s development of special relativity as a way to
explain Gestalt psychology; see Miller 1984, 189–195.
2. See Janssen 2004 for an overview of the arguments that Einstein’s attempt to extend general relativity to arbitrary and rotating motion was
not fully successful and perhaps less necessary than he thought.
3. Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), translated by Stillman Drake, 186.
4. Miller 1999, 102.
5. Einstein, “Ether and the Theory of Relativity,” address at the University of Leiden, May 5, 1920.
6. Ibid.; Einstein 1916, chapter 13.
7. Einstein, “Ether and the Theory of Relativity,” address at the University of Leiden, May 5, 1920.
8. Einstein to Dr. H. L. Gordon, May 3, 1949, AEA 58-217.
9. See Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams for an imaginative and insightful fictional rumination on Einstein’s discovery of special relativity.
Lightman captures the flavor of the professional, personal, and scientific thoughts that might have been swirling in Einstein’s mind.
10. Peter Galison, the Harvard science historian, is the most compelling proponent of the influence of Einstein’s technological environment.
Arthur I. Miller presents a milder version. Among those who feel that these influences are overstated are John Norton, Tilman Sauer, and
Alberto Martinez. See Alberto Martinez, “Material History and Imaginary Clocks,”Physics in Perspective 6 (2004): 224.
11. Einstein 1922c. I rely on a corrected translation of this 1922 lecture that gives a different view of what Einstein said; see bibliography for an
explanation.
12. Einstein, 1949b, 49. For other versions, see Wertheimer, 214; Einstein 1956, 10.
13. Miller 1984, 123, has an appendix explaining how the 1895 thought experiment affected Einstein’s thinking. See also Miller 1999, 30–31;
Norton 2004, 2006b. In the latter paper, Norton notes, “[This] is untroubling to an ether theorist. Maxwell’s equations do entail quite directly
that the observer would find a frozen waveform; and the ether theorist does not expect frozen waveforms in our experience since we do
not move at the velocity of light in the ether.”
14. Einstein to Erika Oppenheimer, Sept. 13, 1932, AEA 25-192; Moszkowski, 4.
15. Gerald Holton was the first to emphasize Föppl’s influence on Einstein, citing the memoir by his son-in-law Anton Reiser and the German
edition of Philipp Frank’s biography. Holton 1973, 210.
16. Einstein, “Fundamental Ideas and Methods of the Theory of Relativity” (1920), unpublished draft of an article for Nature, CPAE 7: 31. See
also Holton 1973, 362–364; Holton 2003.
17. Einstein to Mileva Mari , Aug. 10, 1899.
18. Einstein to Mileva Mari , Sept. 10 and 28, 1899; Einstein 1922c.
19. Einstein to Robert Shankland, Dec. 19, 1952, says that he read Lorentz’s book before 1905. In his 1922 Kyoto lecture (Einstein 1922c) he
speaks of being a student in 1899 and says, “Just at that time I had a chance to read Lorentz’s paper of 1895.” Einstein to Michele Besso,
Jan. 22?, 1903, says he is beginning “comprehensive, extensive studies in electron theory.” Arthur I. Miller provides a good look at what
Einstein had already learned. See Miller 1981, 85–86.
20. This section draws from Gerald Holton, “Einstein, Michelson, and the ‘Crucial’ Experiment,” in Holton 1973, 261–286, and Pais 1982,
115–117. Both assess Einstein’s varying statements. The historical approach has evolved over the years. For example, Einstein’s
longtime friend and fellow physicist Philipp Frank wrote in 1957, “Einstein started from the most prominent case in which the old laws of
motion and light propagation had failed to yield to the observed facts: the Michelson experiment” (Frank 1957, 134). Gerald Holton, the
Harvard historian of science, wrote in a letter to me about this topic (May 30, 2006): “Concerning the Michelson/Morley experiment, until
three or four decades ago practically everyone wrote, particularly in textbooks, that there was a straight line between that experiment and
Einstein’s special relativity. All this changed of course when it became possible to take a careful look at Einstein’s own documents on the
matter ... Even non-historians have long ago given up the idea that there was a crucial connection between that particular experiment and
Einstein’s work.”
21. Einstein 1922c; Einstein toast to Albert Michelson, the Athenaeum, Caltech, Jan. 15, 1931, AEA 8-328; Einstein message to Albert
Michelson centennial, Case Institute, Dec. 19, 1952, AEA 1-168.
22. Wertheimer, chapter 10; Miller 1984, 190.
23. Robert Shankland interviews and letters, Feb. 4, 1950, Oct. 24, 1952, Dec. 19, 1952. See also Einstein to F. G. Davenport, Feb. 9, 1954:
“In my own development, Michelson’s result has not had a considerable influence, I even do not remember if I knew of it at all when I wrote
my first paper on the subject. The explanation is that I was, for general reasons, firmly convinced that there does not exist absolute
motion.”
24. Miller 1984, 118: “It was unnecessary for Einstein to review every extant ether-drift experiment, because in his view their results were ab
initio [from the beginning] a foregone conclusion.” This section draws on Miller’s work and on suggestions he made to an earlier draft.
25. Einstein saw the null results of the ether-drift experiments as support for the relativity principle, not (as is sometimes assumed) support for
the postulate that light always moves at a constant velocity. John Stachel, “Einstein and Michelson: The Context of Discovery and Context
of Justification,” 1982, in Stachel 2002a.
26. Professor Robert Rynasiewicz of Johns Hopkins is among those who emphasize Einstein’s reliance on inductive methods. Even though
Einstein in his later career wrote often that he relied more on deduction than on induction, Rynasiewicz calls this “highly contentious.” He
argues instead, “My view of the annus mirabilis is that it is a triumph of what can be secured inductively in the way of fixed points from
which to carry on despite the lack of a fundamental theory.” Rynasiewicz e-mail to me, commenting on an earlier draft of this section, June
29, 2006.
27. Miller 1984, 117; Sonnert, 289.
28. Holton 1973, 167.
29. Einstein, “Induction and Deduction in Physics,”Berliner Tageblatt , Dec. 25, 1919, CPAE 7: 28.
30. Einstein to T. McCormack, Dec. 9, 1952, AEA 36-549. McCormack was a Brown University undergraduate who had written Einstein a fan
letter.
31. Einstein 1949b, 89.
32. The following analysis draws from Miller 1981 and from the work of John Stachel, John Norton, and Robert Rynasiewicz cited in the
bibliography. Miller, Norton, and Rynasiewicz kindly read drafts of my work and suggested corrections.
33. Miller 1981, 311, describes a connection between Einstein’s papers on light quanta and special relativity. In section 8 of his special